Hello. My name is Matt...

I'm a results-driven, entrepreneurial marketer with a rare blend of creativity and analytical skills, and a passion for continuous improvement.

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Capabilities

Digital Marketing Strategy

For over 10 years, I’ve helped large brands in a variety of industries create measurable and effective digital marketing strategies. From establishing measurement plans to optimizing audience profiles, I've driven strategy from planning to execution and everywhere inbetween.

Digital Marketing Strategy

For over 10 years, I’ve helped large brands in a variety of industries create measurable and effective digital marketing strategies. From establishing measurement plans to optimizing audience profiles, I've driven strategy from planning to execution and everywhere inbetween.

Analytics & Measurement

An effective measurement plan is guided by business objectives, KPI’s, metrics and a robust web analytics infrastructure. My experience has helped me build measurement plans that become the foundation for successful analysis and reporting. In addition, my technical background has allowed me to build web analytics infrastructures from the ground up.

Analytics & Measurement

An effective measurement plan is guided by business objectives, KPI’s, metrics and a robust web analytics infrastructure. My experience has helped me build measurement plans that execute above and beyond the desired business outcomes. In addition, my technical background has allowed me to build web analytics infrastructures from the ground up.

Testing

I firmly believe that testing is the driving force of any successful digital marketing campaign. Throughout my career, I’ve conducted thousands of A/B and multivariate tests on campaign elements including audience segments, creative and landing pages. My mantra is “Always Be Testing”.

Testing

I firmly believe that testing is the driving force of any successful digital marketing campaign. Throughout my career, I’ve conducted thousands of A/B and multivariate tests on campaign elements including audience segments, creative and landing pages. My mantra is “Always Be Testing”.

Optimization

By taking a rigorous approach to testing, I’m able to analyze the successes and failures of a campaign by using data to make tactical adjustments. My success with optimization leads to increased conversion rates, decreased cost per acquisition and higher revenues.

Optimization

By taking a rigorous approach to testing, I’m able to analyze the successes and failures of a campaign by using data to make tactical adjustments. My success with optimization leads to increased conversion rates, decreased cost per acquisition and higher revenues.

Team Leadership

When it comes to building teams, my philosophy involves combining raw talent with exceptional work ethic and providing ongoing mentoring. Over the years I’ve led designers, developers, marketers, copywriters, and social media specialists.

Team Leadership

When it comes to building teams, my philosophy involves combining raw talent with exceptional work ethic and providing ongoing mentoring. Over the years I’ve led designers, developers, marketers, copywriters, and social media specialists.

Online University - Case Study #1

The Challenge

After numerous creative refreshes, a non-profit, online university was struggling to generate leads on major social channels.

Click-through rates were falling which meant less visits to the site resulting in fewer leads than the prior year. The messaging on the ads, which were reflective of skills that prospects could attain in the specific degree program, had grown stale.

The Strategy

It was clear that a new messaging strategy was needed. Instead of focusing on the skills prospects could attain, I shifted focus on the ROI of the specific master’s degree program.

I wanted to convey how this program was career-focused and made prospects more attractive to employers. I also pulled key statistics to validate these claims and used them on ad networks with higher character counts in the creative, such as Facebook newsfeed and LinkedIn sponsored update ad units.

I then setup A/B tests of the creative on each channel and tested the old ads versus the new ads. I decided to run these tests for one lower performing program as a starting point.

The success would be measured by the click-through rates on the ads and the number of inquiries received. I launched the ads and set a window of four weeks to review the performance data.

The Results

At the end of the four week testing period, the click-through rate increased 19% however, more importantly, the ads were converting and drove inquiries up 27%.

Clearly the new messaging was effective. As a result, I started to put together a larger strategy on how the updated messaging could be used for all other campaigns. See Online University Case Study #3 for the results of the expanded strategy.

Online University - Case Study #2

The Challenge

An online university was experiencing dramatic increases in total cost and cost-per-acquisition for a competitive MBA campaign.

The campaign had performed well in the past, however increasing competition had driven costs up. This also lead to an increase in cost-per-acquisition while also reducing the amount of qualified leads.

The Strategy

When I first looked at the data, it was clear that the landing page needed to be revamped. I discovered numerous factors that could be causing the landing pages to underperform.

The first element was the load time of the page. The page itself was bloated with extra code that was used on other pages throughout the site, which affected overall page speed.

In addition, there were a lot of options for users to click on. The main navigation on the page was enabled, and there were numerous links on the page, which users were clicking on according to heatmap data collected. All of this distracted the user from the main goal the landing page, which was to generate leads through a request for information form.

I decided it would be best to completely revamp the landing page with a brand new template, but wanted to test it first to validate the results before widespread adoption.

I purchased a minimal-style template and customized the HTML, CSS and PHP on the landing page to make it a little more user-friendly. I removed all other navigation to make it a single page landing page so that users could contact the sales team quicker. In addition, I chose short, digestible content that would pique the user's interest enough to request information and speak with someone on the sales team.

In addition, I used CrazyEgg to track user activity via heatmaps and scrollmaps to see how users were interacting with the page.

I tested this new landing page against the old landing page for a period of six weeks to get accurate and meaningful performance data.

The Results

After the six week testing period concluded, it was apparent that the new landing page greatly outperformed the old landing page. The cost-per-acquisition had been slashed by 67% while the number of conversions had increased by 44%.

Given the success this landing page had received, I put together a broader strategy of rolling this out for all online degree programs, with the hopes of seeing a similar success. See Online University Case Study #3 for the results of the expanded strategy.

Online University - Case Study #3

The Challenge

Competition was on the rise for an online university. More leads were needed for the sales team for all online degree programs.

Compared to the previous year, it was estimated that a 23% year-over-year increase in leads was needed. It was clear that some optimization needed to be done.

The Strategy

Luckily there were some early stage tests that had showed promise. In the previous two case studies (Online University #1 and #2) the messaging and the landing pages were tweaked for two separate programs, which resulted in a positive impact on conversions and cost-per-acquisition.

Given the success of those two tests, I decided to roll out the changes to all online degree programs. Doing this took a month of preparation to create all new creative and landing pages while ensuring the messaging was consistent on each.

In order to get this project done on-time, I broke up each piece of the project and allocated it to the three marketers I had on staff (one full-time, two part-time). I broke each piece down into channel targeting, ad copy creation, image sourcing and landing pages.

We were all able to get the work done on-time and rolled out all of the revamped campaigns and landing pages in time for the March launch date.

The Results

When the revamp rolled out, it was for the fall semester push, which had a marketing cycle from March - August. During this time, I analyzed data and made tweaks on the fly, typically every six weeks (depending on the amount of volume on each campaign).

By the end of August, leads had increased by 84% compared to the prior year. All of the optimizations had worked and every online degree program had seen an increased amount of leads due to these adjustments.

Consumer Packaged Goods - Case Study

The Challenge

The list database for a large CPG company had plateaued as interest at trade show events had declined.

The company had built up a pretty sizeable list of teachers to market to. However, attendance at events and trade shows, which had been their primary driver in the past, had declined. A new method was needed to grow their database of teachers.

The Strategy

I met with the client to understand their audience better as well as their successes and failures. Based on their feedback, I started to build a foundation for a digital marketing strategy.

Given the demographics, I decided that display campaigns on Google Adwords would be the best fit for this audience. I wanted to reach teachers on sites that they frequently visited and show them an ad with a special offer/coupon to entice them to sign up for the promotional email list.

I researched hundreds of sites that had targeted teacher audiences while also being relatively inexpensive from a CPM standpoint. I then I put together the media plan for the client to review which quickly gained their approval.

Next came the landing page. I built out a page to test with in HTML, CSS and ASP.Net to prominently display the special offer while also making sure that all of the pertinent contact information was collected.

Finally the messaging. I wrote copy for the landing page and ads that were consistent across the board. Then I worked with the designers to create the ads needed for the campaigns. After getting the client’s approval on the complete campaign, it was time to launch.

The Results

The campaign ran for a total of three months.Throughout the campaign, I would constantly make adjustments. If a target was underperforming, I would optimize or pause the campaign. For targets that were overperforming, I added more budget to the campaign to increase conversions at an ideal cost.

By the end of the campaign, the total sign ups had increased by 30% year-over-year. Given the success, the client continued to renew this campaign each quarter.

Snow Mountain Tourism - Case Study

The Challenge

A regional ski mountain was struggling with a high shopping cart abandonment rate on their ecommerce site.

The checkout process was a six-step process which was rather cumbersome and not user-friendly. As a result, the data showed that the shopping cart abandonment rate was high.

Since the work to adjust the checkout process involved extra dollars from their web development budget, the client preferred not to invest any money into an optimized checkout process.

The challenge for this case study was not only to improve the checkout process, but to also convince the client that it was a worthwhile investment to make.

The Strategy

Since data was already presented and rejected, the best way to convince the client would be for them to hear directly from the users of the site themselves. With the client’s approval, I put together a strategy to conduct a usability study consisting of a series of questions that engaged the users in site and shopping cart functionality.

I conducted the study on-site at the mountain and was able to find 30 participants during a busy day in the heart of ski season. Each participant was offered a gift card to the pro shop as incentive. To record each session, I was sure to use screen capturing software and a microphone to make sure the client both saw the user's actions and heard their comments.

During each session, I observed how each user purchased ski passes based on the questions that I had asked. Once the sessions concluded, I packaged all of the material up for presentation to the client.

The Results

The data revealed that 83% of the users would get to page three or four of the checkout process and get frustrated with how to proceed. The checkout flow wasn’t clear to the user since personal information, such as address, was being asked multiple times, both on the product level and in the checkout process.

Based off of this study, my recommendation was to implement a single-page checkout while reducing the amount of redundant information that the client collected from the user. Seeing the recorded data and hearing the frustration of the user really helped drive the decision for the client to approve this project.

As a result of developing and implementing the single-page checkout process, the client saw a 26% decrease in shopping cart abandonment. In addition, I was also able to generate revenue for my employer for the web development work needed to update the process.